City Councilor Greg Milne is usually so enmeshed in his own verbiage that he apparently fails to hear the pleadings of others or see the writing on the wall. As one infuriated constituent said about Milne after the Aug. 6 council meeting at the high school concerning the contentious Stewart’s Creek area sewerage plan, “He’s toast.”

The comment at the time seemed like an idle threat from a completely upstanding but disillusioned citizen who believed his councilor had sold him down the sludge pipe to drown him and his family in financial poo.

Now we know the observation wasn’t idle at all. The disappointment in Milne’s stewardship in some quarters has been profound enough to launch Thursday’s recall election that, if successful, will give Milne the dubious distinction of being the first councilor to be given the bum’s rush by the majority voters whose wishes he was supposed to represent.

Milne animatedly approached me at that charged, well-attended August meeting in a dither of disbelief, and frenetically advertising the emergence of a recall movement over an issue that would force some residents to pay $20,000 to $25,000 in betterment taxes and hook-up fees…a price some truly can’t afford.

Four months after the August meeting, the issue continues to roil in the council chamber as Milne’s aggrieved constituents appear before councilors to share their depressing financial stories.

Last week a 79-year-old retiree said he was trying to sell his house because he can’t afford the betterment, but realtors won’t handle it until the sewerage situation is resolved, he told councilors. He is another financially vulnerable constituent forced between a rock and a hard place over this misguided sewerage initiative.

There is a lot Milne could have done to avoid this potentially fatal taint on his otherwise cackling but robust adventure in public service. Primarily, he could have listened to a broader segment of his constituency before running off half-cocked with 10 names to push the project through before realizing the financial tsunami he and the council herd were unleashing.

He could have spoken out against the project after the vote on the basis of cruel and abusive treatment of retired and poor families and made a gallant plea for the council to reverse its decisions over a lousy 8 percent in stimulus funds.

Al Baker, who appears often before the council with a mellow mélange of this ‘n that, said at Thursday night’s council meeting he wasn’t sure about this recall business. His view is it shouldn’t occur over a councilor’s vote.

For his edification, it isn’t occurring because of a vote. It’s occurring because a representative of the people failed to represent them. Mr. Baker may forget that a vote to kill the project under current abhorrent financing circumstances won at the polls 2,528 to 755. That’s a mandate, however ignored by the council, if there ever was one.

If anything, all councilors who voted for it ought to be dumped overboard with Milne. They are as welcome in Precinct 13 as a mouse on a wedding cake. Long live the recall!

There is only one thing worse than the local government’s callous creation of this big bang financial problem: That will be the failure of the electorate in Precinct 13 to attract 20 percent of the voters so that whatever the result, the vote will at least count.

Failing that, the voters of Precinct 13 will suffer the consequences of consorting with the demons of apathy. (The precinct voted 214 to 85 on Oct. 13 against the funding mechanism as it now stands. But it fell short of the required 20 percent turnout, so it didn’t count.)

There is talk now that Stewart’s Creek residents aren’t signing requests by the town to dig on their private streets. Without that permission, it is being said, the project could go into eminent domain, finally dragging the rest of the community into the fray to pay for those proceedings.

The council, for its part, can ignore mandates and continue to do as it pleases with impunity because all incumbents were recently re-elected.

From this corner, Precinct 13 has a chance to champion the struggling homeowners by recalling Milne as a clear signal that voters will not abide council decisions tantamount to forced eviction of the defenseless or blatant disregard of public mandates.

Precinct 13 is talking the talk. It remains to be seen if it will walk the walk on Thursday.